Web Survey Bibliography
This article presents a study which compared the impact of numeric values of rating scales in mail surveys and telephone interviews. The specific numeric values presented as part of a rating scale may change the meaning of the scale's verbal endpoints, essentially resulting in responses to different questions. The authors provide a conceptual replication of this finding in a different content domain and compared the relative strength of the impact of numeric values under telephone and mail survey conditions. The data are drawn from a larger experimental survey conducted with a systematic random sample of 412 adults (18 years or older), selected from the telephone directories for Mannheim and Heidelberg, Germany, in November and December 1991. The findings of the study replicate the phenomenon observed by Norbert Schwarz et al. in a different content domain and across two administration modes. Respondents use formal features of the questionnaire to determine the exact meaning of a question. Hence, combining a verbal label with a negative numeric value suggests a more negative interpretation of the verbal scale anchor and results in more positive responses along the scale. The findings indicate that the numeric values do not need to be presented in a visual format to receive sufficient attention.
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Web survey bibliography - Germany (361)
- Time Measurement And Pre-testing In On-line-Questionnaires; 2002; Mueller, J., Reimer, M.
- Assessing Internet Questionnaires: The online pretest lab; 2002; Graef, L.
- Understanding the Willingness to Participate in Online-Surveys - The case of E-mail questionnaires; 2002; Bosnjak, M., Batinic, B.
- Ethische Dimensionen der Online-Forschung; 2001; Dzeyk, W.
- Knowledge acquisition, navigation and eye movements from text and hypertext; 2001; Naumann, A., Waniek, J., Krems, J. F.
- Platform-dependent biases in Online Research: Do Mac users really think different?; 2001; Buchanan, T., Reips, U.-D.
- Current Internet science - trends, techniques, results. ; 1999; Reips, U.-D., Batinic, B., Bandilla, W., Bosnjak, M., Graef, L., Moser, K., Werner, A.
- Drop-out caused by JavaScript: "I could not have expected this to happen " - A Web experiment...; 1999; Reips, U.-D., Schwarz, S.
- Getting a foot in the electronic door Understanding why people read or delete electronic mail; 1997; Tuten, T. L.
- Electronic methods of collecting survey data: A review of E-research; 1997; Tuten, T. L.
- The numeric values of rating scales: A comparison of their impact in mail surveys and telephone interviews...; 1994; Schwarz, N., Hippler, H. J.